Making Meaning Out of Stone: Built Environment & Ritual Practice in Florence & Cairo c.1300

Topic outline

General

Making Meaning out of Stone: The Built Environment and Ritual Practice in Florence and Cairo c. 1300

Mondays and Wednesdays 11:30 to 12:50

Course Description

Cities have always been sites of protest, transformation, dream making and dream dashing, triumph, celebration and disaster. Human activity, building practices and civic authority all play a role in the creation and production of both the stage and the Ã¢â‚¬Å“playÃ¢â‚¬Â of city life. This course undertakes to examine two world historical cities, Florence and Cairo in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. Both were key cities of the Mediterranean world at this time, experiencing remarkable growth in their architectural fabric, their world renown and their earthly riches. The aim of the course is to probe, through an examination of primary documents and the built environment, what lived experience in these two cities was like.

Topic 11

Week Twelve. November 21 and 23.Continuity and Change (continued)

Topic 12

Week Thirteen. November 28 and 30. The limits of comparative analysis. Methodological discussions

(Note Final of URBAN ANALYSIS DUE Ã¢â‚¬â€œ November 30th (no late papers accepted)

Spatial considerations and Visual Practice

Read: S.Bozdogan, Ã¢â‚¬Å“Architectural History in Professional Education: Reflections on Postcolonial Challenges to the Modern Survey,Ã¢â‚¬Â (click link) and R. Nelson, Ã¢â‚¬Å“Living on the Byzantine Borders of Western Art,Ã¢â‚¬Â (click link)